Archaeologists are racing to find a lost city before it’s ransacked

By Paul Cooper

Trustees of The British Museum/PA

Hundreds of clay capsules were rescued from smugglers over the final few years, all bearing behold to a lost Sumerian city that was dwelling to a mysterious old cult. The capsules display that looters must contain stumbled on the positioning, and archaeologists now are racing to acquire it before it’s some distance entirely ransacked.

Iri-Sagrig was a flourishing city that reached its zenith about 4000 years ago. “It was the capital of a predominant province of the Neo-Sumerian …